2015 was a musical force of a year: so topical, so driving, so important in so many ways. Here’s what made it for me.
This list is just my opinion. This isn’t definitive. It is a good list, though.
Honorable Mentions:
Sufjan Stevens, Carrie and Lowell
Panda Bear, Panda Bear Vs The Grim Reaper
Running Laps, sometimes i am happy, sometimes i am sad
EL VY, Return to the Moon
10. Reptar - Lurid Glow
As an album, Lurid Glow really has its ups and downs. “Ice Black Sand,” in particular, feels like half of a Reptar track. Despite its shortcomings, Lurid Glow prevails as a welcome reminder that nobody in the industry is doing what Reptar is doing. The ricocheting synths in “Sea of Fertility” and the horns on the live version of “No One Will Ever Love You” screamed nothing but “favorite song” to me the first few times I listened to them. Reptar have so much gusto, so much life. I can say with confidence that if Lurid Glow was a live album, it’d be at least in my top 5.
9. Arca - Mutant
Arca’s debut album Xen was a completely new frontier. With Mutant, Ghersi strays away from conventional structure, devoting himself entirely to the unearthing of unexplored territory. The closest thing we get to a vocal is a loop on "Umbilical," and "Front Load" is the closest thing to a single Mutant is willing to have. However, like Xen, Mutant’s structure is less of an album and more of a majestic maze of sound waiting for explorers to get lost in it.
8. Mick Jenkins - Wave(s)
Mick Jenkins’ mixtape The Water(s) is an album I wish I could listen to for the first time again, and he did it again with Wave(s). I’m sure the first three tracks will remain some of my favorites for a long, long while. The album feels like a resume-- though the songs are stylistically different, Jenkins’ flow remains constant no matter what he’s doing with it. The album really feels like a waterfall; the water metaphor works perfectly and I hope he never decides to part ways with it.
7. Youth Lagoon - Savage Hills Ballroom
Noah Lennox has one of the most enigmatic voices in indie and it’s so great to finally hear what it can do. After years of listening to his live performances just to hear his ethereal chirp, songs like “Highway Patrol Stun Gun” and especially “Kerry” cut me to the core. Savage Hills Ballroom is like finally unwrapping a present you’ve been staring at for years, or like opening a time capsule.
6. Tame Impala - Currents
There’s something about every song on this album that just makes my jaw drop. The glittery pulse and heavy crunch of “Let It Happen”, the ethereal spoken word of “Past Life”, that bass line on “The Less I Know The Better”, and the aching vocals on “‘Cause I’m A Man”. As someone new to Tame Impala, this was a hell of an introduction.
5. SOPHIE - Product
SOPHIE’s Product was released for pre-order as many things: a series of four 12” singles, a pair of sunglasses, a jacket, a CD, a pair of shoes, and a buttplug. Ha. Seriously though, it makes sense: the music is like someone spilled love potion on a computer. Given that “Product” isn’t much of an album but, like it’s marketed, a series of singles, an outlet of basic capitalistic pleasure. These songs operate on a different frequency.
4. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly
This is the most important album of 2015, bar none. I shouldn’t have to tell you that at this point. It’d be my number one if I didn’t have opinions, but I do. If you haven’t listened to this yet, you’re doing something wrong.
3. Oneohtrix Point Never - Garden of Delete
OPN has built an album that sounds just as scary and somehow enjoyable as growing up is. I wish I had this album years ago. Sounding kind of like Lavender Town meets Sufjan Stevens, the album bursts with introspective sadness, the intense kind that doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to go away. “Sticky Drama” is a strange trip into sex and power, “Ezra” is a Charlie Brown parental lecture with a wild imagination running through it, and “I Bite Through It” is 5 am with no sleep for three days on a keyboard in a last, desperate attempt at clarity. I wish I had better words to describe what this album does, but there aren’t any. It’s brutal and beautiful, a dark, truthful guardian angel.
2. Grimes - Art Angels
Speaking of angels, it’s no secret how absolutely in love I am with this record. It’s Grimes’ best album and one of the best pop albums I’ve ever heard. No lyric (except those on TPAB) felt more gratifying this year than “If you’re looking for a dream girl/I’ll never be your dream girl”.
1. Dan Deacon - Gliss Riffer
Gliss Riffer has two songs on it that pretty much don’t exist to me and it’s still my favorite album of the year. A beautiful return-to-form and breath out, Deacon flits over his buttons and knobs with the passion of someone making their first big record. It’s naive joy encapsulated, but it’s also something more self-aware, something real. The increasingly desperate pleas of “Feel the Lightning” and “Mind on Fire”, the worldly and loving “Learning to Relax”, and the hysteria of “Sheathed Wings” create a powerful pastel backdrop, something that makes sense despite its chaos. Gliss Riffer is an album about flailing until something clicks, but instead in a stroke of genius, luck, or irony, everything clicks.
